Supporting memory and identity in older people: findings from a ‘Sandpit’ process

Identity in old age is challenged by physical changes, evolving roles within the family, and life transitions such as retirement. Supporting identity is therefore important in later life, and might be assisted by media technologies which allow people to reflect on their lives, record their personal histories and share these with family, friends and caregivers. This possibility was explored in two creative ‘Sandpits’ with older people as part of the SUS-IT project, funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing programme in the UK. Discussions were held with PC and non-PC user groups of retirement age to understand memory and identity practices and elicit reactions to three novel product concepts. These included a Reminiscing Radio for life review, a Story Lamp for associating spoken stories with photographs and memorabilia, and a pair of virtual reality Travel Glasses for transporting you back to a special place in the past. The main findings of these discussions will be presented, along with concepts generated by the participants in a re-design exercise. This paper will also show how the sandpits enabled older people to be involved in the design process by allowing them to shape early design concepts through exploring their own ideas and motivations

Simulating Problem Difficulty in Arithmetic Cognition Through Dynamic Connectionist Models

The present study aims to investigate similarities between how humans and connectionist models experience difficulty in arithmetic problems. Problem difficulty was operationalized by the number of carries involved in solving a given problem. Problem difficulty was measured in humans by response time, and in models by computational steps. The present study found that both humans and connectionist models experience difficulty similarly when solving binary addition and subtraction. Specifically, both agents found difficulty to be strictly increasing with respect to the number of carries. Another notable similarity is that problem difficulty increases more steeply in subtraction than in addition, for both humans and connectionist models. Further investigation on two model hyperparameters --- confidence threshold and hidden dimension --- shows higher confidence thresholds cause the model to take more computational steps to arrive at the correct answer. Likewise, larger hidden dimensions cause the model to take more computational steps to correctly answer arithmetic problems; however, this effect by hidden dimensions is negligible.Comment: 7 pages; 15 figures; 5 tables; Published in the proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Cognitive Modelling (ICCM 2019

Time to Reflect: exploring wellbeing, emotional work and research identity following a PhD

This paper reflects on the experience of my PhD in Interactive Textiles forwellbeing and intends to provide ways for other doctoral students to reflect andunderstand their PhD beyond the data. First I highlight how I managed my wellbeingduring my PhD and provide information on strategies which helped me to do so. Ithen highlight the emotional work which was required to conduct my studies,particularly within Dementia Friendly Communities. Alongside this I explain how mybackground and previous experience contributed to my overall approach and identityas a researcher. My key learnings from my experience offer ways for futureresearchers to; Reflect on and manage wellbeing; Reflect as a researcher working onchallenging and emotional topics; Reflect on how background and experienceinfluence individual research approaches. In addition, this paper provides key takeaways such as training and networking suggestions

Sonic Flock; Crowdsourcing, Exhibiting and Gifting Interactive Textile Birds for Wellbeing

This paper outlines the crowdsourcing, display and gifting of a “Sonic Flock” of interactive textile birds in the Outer Hebrides. The research explores how the Sonic Flock can enhance wellbeing, social connection and facilitate conversation within and between dementia-friendly communities (DFC). A range of themes - including bringing the outside in, birds and textile making were identified through conversations with care home residents, staff and families of those living in care homes in the Outer Hebrides. These themes were fed into the Sonic Flock project. Knitted and sewn birds were crowdsourced from makers throughout the UK. The resulting Sonic Flock; over 80 birds, were displayed in An Lanntair as part of Cuimhne (‘memory’ in Gaelic) exhibition. Some of the textile birds were designed and developed to play bird songs when touched. After the exhibition, the birds were gifted to island residents living in care homes throughout Lewis, Harris and Uist. They acted as social objects and conversation starters, building relationships between the researcher, staff, residents and wider DFC

Network-based RTK Positioning: Impact of Separating Dispersive and Non-dispersive Components on User-side Processing Strategy

The concept of network-based positioning has been extensively developed in order to better model the distance-dependent errors of GPS carrier-phase measurements. These errors can be separated into a frequency-dependent or dispersive component (e.g. the ionospheric delay) and a non-dispersive component (e.g. the tropospheric delay and orbit biases). In fact, dispersive and non-dispersive errors have different dynamic effects on the GPS network corrections. The separation of the two is useful for modelling the network corrections and can provide network users with more options for their data processing strategy. A simple running average is proposed in this paper to provide a stable network correction for the non-dispersive term. It is found that the non-dispersive correction can be used to obtain better ionosphere-free measurements, and therefore helpful in resolving the long-range integer ambiguity of the GPS carrier-phase measurements. Once the integer ambiguities have been resolved, dispersive and non-dispersive corrections can be applied to the fixed carrier-phase measurements for positioning step so as to improve the accuracy of the estimated coordinates. Instantaneous positioning, i.e. single-epoch positioning, has been tested for two regional networks: Sydney Network (SYDNET) and Singapore Integrated Multiple Reference Station (SIMRSN), Singapore. The test results have shown that the proposed strategy performs well in generating the network corrections, in fixing ambiguities and in computing a user’s position

GPS network-based approach to mitigate residual tropospheric delay in low latitude areas

A strong spatio-temporal variation of the wet component in the troposphere leaves us in a peculiar predicament. The residual tropospheric delay will remain in the measurements and therefore affect the estimation of related parameters. In the areas of hot and wet climate conditions, especially in the equatorial or low latitude regions, the strong tropospheric effect on GPS measurements is unquestionable. This study proposes geometric modeling through the network-based approach to mitigate the residual tropospheric delay in such regions. A part of Southeast Asia is selected as a test area for the study, which covers Malaysia and Singapore. Tests are conducted in post-processing but in the “simulating RTK� mode, and evaluated by the number of ambiguity fixes and the accuracy of the coordinate results. Network-based RTK positioning in low latitude areas has shown that the proposed technique can enhance ambiguity resolution by pivoting the ionosphere-free measurements through the mitigated residual tropospheric delay

Prophylactic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the prevention of macular oedema after cataract surgery.

BACKGROUND: Macular oedema (MO) is the accumulation of extracellular fluid in the central retina (the macula). It may occur after cataract surgery and may give rise to poor visual outcome, with reduced visual acuity and distortion of the central vision. MO is often self-limiting with spontaneous resolution, but a small proportion of people with chronic persistent MO may be difficult to treat. Chronic oedema may lead to the formation of cystic spaces in the retina termed 'cystoid macular oedema' (CMO). Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are commonly used in cataract surgery and may reduce the chances of developing MO. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this review is to answer the question: is there evidence to support the prophylactic use of topical NSAIDs either in addition to, or instead of, topical steroids postoperatively to reduce the incidence of macular oedema (MO) and associated visual morbidity. SEARCH METHODS: We searched a number of electronic databases including CENTRAL, MEDLINE and Embase. Date last searched 2 September 2016. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in which adult participants had undergone surgery for age-related cataract. We included participants irrespective of their baseline risk of MO, in particular we included people with diabetes and uveitis. We included trials of preoperative and/or postoperative topical NSAIDs in conjunction with postoperative topical steroids. The comparator was postoperative topical steroids alone. A secondary comparison was preoperative and/or postoperative topical NSAIDs alone versus postoperative topical steroids alone. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently selected studies for inclusion, assessed risk of bias and extracted data using standard methods expected by Cochrane. We pooled data using a random-effects model. We graded the certainty of the evidence using GRADE and considered the following: risk of bias of included studies, precision of the effect estimate, consistency of effects between studies, directness of the outcome measure and publication bias. MAIN RESULTS: We identified 34 studies that were conducted in the Americas, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean region and South-East Asia. Over 5000 people were randomised in these trials. The majority of studies enrolled one eye per participant; a small subset (4 trials) enrolled a proportion of people with bilateral surgery. Twenty-eight studies compared NSAIDs plus steroids with steroids alone. Six studies compared NSAIDs with steroids. A variety of NSAIDs were used, including ketorolac, diclofenac, nepafenac, indomethacin, bromfenac, flurbiprofen and pranopfen. Follow-up ranged from one to 12 months. In general, the studies were poorly reported. We did not judge any of the studies at low risk of bias in all domains. Six studies were funded by industry, seven studies were funded from non-industry sources, and the rest of the studies did not report the source of funding.There was low-certainty evidence that people receiving topical NSAIDs in combination with steroids may have a lower risk of poor vision due to MO at three months after cataract surgery compared with people receiving steroids alone (risk ratio (RR) 0.41, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.23 to 0.76; eyes = 1360; studies = 5; I2 = 5%). We judged this to be low-certainty evidence because of risk of bias in the included studies and indirectness, as the extent of visual loss was not always clear. Only one study reported poor vision due to MO at 12 months and we judged this to be very low-certainty evidence as there were only two events. Quality of life was only reported in one of the 34 studies comparing NSAIDs plus steroids versus steroids alone, and it was not fully reported, other than to comment on lack of differences between groups. There was evidence of a reduced risk of MO with NSAIDs at three months after surgery, but we judged this to be low-certainty due to risk of bias and publication bias (RR 0.40, 95% CI 0.32 to 0.49; eyes = 3638; studies = 21). There was inconsistent evidence on central retinal thickness at three months (I2 = 87%). Results ranged from -30.9 µm in favour of NSAIDs plus steroids to 7.44 µm in favour of steroids alone. Similarly, data on best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) were inconsistent, but nine out of 10 trials reporting this outcome found between-group differences in visual acuity of less than 0.1 logMAR.None of the six studies comparing NSAIDs alone with steroids reported on poor vision due to MO at three or 12 months. There was low-certainty evidence that central retinal thickness was lower in the NSAIDs group at three months (mean difference (MD) -22.64 µm, 95% CI -38.86 to -6.43; eyes = 121; studies = 2). Five studies reported on MO and showed a reduced risk with NSAIDs, but we judged this evidence to be of low-certainty (RR 0.27, 95% CI 0.18 to 0.41; eyes = 520). Three studies reported BCVA at three months and the results of these trials were inconsistent, but all three studies found differences of less than 0.1 logMAR between groups.We did not note any major adverse events - the main consistent observation was burning or stinging sensation with the use of NSAIDs. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Using topical NSAIDs may reduce the risk of developing macular oedema after cataract surgery, although it is possible that current estimates as to the size of this reduction are exaggerated. It is unclear the extent to which this reduction has an impact on the visual function and quality of life of patients. There is little evidence to suggest any important effect on vision after surgery. The value of adding topical NSAIDs to steroids, or using them as an alternative to topical steroids, with a view to reducing the risk of poor visual outcome after cataract surgery is therefore uncertain. Future trials should address the remaining clinical uncertainty of whether prophylactic topical NSAIDs are of benefit, particularly with respect to longer-term follow-up (at least to 12 months), and should be large enough to detect reduction in the risk of the outcome of most interest to patients, which is chronic macular oedema leading to visual loss